Celtics 2023 Offseason Thread

Gallinari and Muscala headed out too

So, they not only get Zinger, but also move up into the first round this year, get another first rounder next year for Marcus and two guys who wouldn’t get a single minute in a playoff series? This pleases me.

Don’t love losing Grant though, depth is definitely suspect now.

I hope this means they keep Grant Williams, you'd lose so much defense, high engery and physicality losing both.

Not who I'd be targeting at 25, yet Andre Jackson Jr. seems like a Stevens pick. You could say he's like Smart, yet without any scoring.

Trading Smart is so tough for me. I love the guys heart, his love of being a Celtic and everything he does in the community. I reiterate his love of being a Celtic. The team functioned so much better with him as the PG but I still always expected him to make huge mistakes that cost the team. I’m going to miss him, a lot. Who runs point now? That’s going to be important.

A few scattered thoughts without the benefit of reading/listening to much analysis on the deal:

Smart was a huge part of the team culture over the last few years, which at face value is a big loss. But honestly the team culture probably needed some shaking up (or at least some tweaks), so maybe that’s a hidden bonus. I’m thinking about Smart’s slightly snide remarks about Mazzula’s coaching in the Heat series, for instance—maybe the team takes better to coaching without that voice in the locker room.

On the court, Smart turns 30 in March (he’s somehow 18 months older than Porzingis), his defense has noticeably declined and he still takes too many shots (particularly in the clutch). I don’t hate the idea of selling high on him. I think they arguably got more value from this deal than the Brogdon deal (that Warriors pick has real upside—they’re one Curry injury away from being a lottery team and it’s only top four protected). White can do a lot of what Smart does on the court (with worse court vision but better shooting efficiency and fewer turnovers).

I don’t think this is the last significant offseason move. Brogdon may still be available in the right deal, Grant sign and trades are still out there and I wonder if this opens up Horford’s salary for a trade (would they re-sign Grant if they traded Horford?). They could still use a real rotation wing player, for instance.

Porzingis is not going to help the ball movement, but his combination of floor stretching, offensive release valve and rim protection fits well around Tatum and Brown.

Chris Paul would look nice on this team but not sure there’s a way to get him on the roster.

Names I can see at 25: Murray, Sheppard, Sensabaugh, Podziemski, Whitehead

If they want experience they could go Maxence-Prosper, Colby Jones, or Jacquez, but I hope they don’t because I don’t see any of those guys shooting well enough to stick in the league.

This reminds me of how I felt after the Benintendi trade. Just a dagger to the heart : (

There’s another factor here that’s weirdly being overlooked by Celts fans - Derrick White is clearly better than Marcus Smart now.

Maybe it’s a one-off, but I think many people are ignoring just how much Smart’s defense declined last year. It’s possible that the ankle injury lingered into the back half of the year, and that he’ll be back to his usual defensive self next season. But constant nagging injuries are part of the package with Marcus (and for Porzingis, of course), and those types of players don’t tend to age well.

Opening up a clear path for 35+ minutes per night for Derrick White is an underrated aspect of this trade for Boston. On top of being the better player, his constant movement and quick decision-making fits so much better next to Jaylen and Jayson. The ball always seems to get stuck on offense with this Celtics roster, and for better or worse, I think a clean transition from Marcus to Derrick will help in that regard.

I thought the first trade was as good as it gets. Clippers were trading the pick and we were getting the best player. You moved players that were bad on D, for a guy that is much better. One of the better pick and roll defenders in the game, for a switch everything team. I'm big on team ball and D. That was resigning Grant away from a perfect off-season.

This trade isn't bad, the picks are the big part and that's smart given new CBA. How can Stevens draft? He's traded 3 straight first round picks, yet has been good in 2nd round/undrafted. It's not really two first in my book, it's moving up 10 spots and Warriors pick. So yeah the Warriors pick is likely the key. Depending who they pick, you'll always wonder if they could have just got him at 35.

This one leaves you with Brogdon and Pritchard, two guys that any good pick and roll switch team can exploit. Smart for all his faults, would have moments like first half game one. For a team that needed more ball movement, you just got worse. Smart was only guy who would even act like a PG trying to direct players. Part of me has always wanted to trade Smart, the other part of me has always worried if they do. You get better on offense, yet it's iso offense. That crap works in regular season, the playoffs are different and you have to fix your zone D issues.

I just worry about losing Grant and Smart, especially with Horford on his finals steps. Robert Williams and the Unicorn are very good mobile defenders. They aren't your tough and strong guys, thinking about Embiid and Giannis. I'm excited if this means White is the starting PG. His vision might not be elite, yet he's a team first guy that can drive and kick the ball. He could actually run and offense, not do iso. I don't know if it works, I'm excited to see if it does. Get back to the guy we first traded for, which was a guy who drives to the basket a ton. We kinda turned him into a jump shooter. Game 7 you got to see what he could do. I'd also make Pritchard the backup pg, you can trust those two to play team ball and move the ball. Same with Pritchard, get back to his driving we saw first half of rookie year. Thus letting the scorers just be scorers. No pressure on Sam Cassell lol.

Smart is my favorite player of all time. Not my favorite Celtic, my favorite basketball player. But selling high on him with White on the roster isn’t a bad move. Getting 2 first round picks for him is great. Getting The Porzingod for a second round pick is legendary. Not much to complain aside from missing Marcus but this is a move they HAD to make.

Not a Celtics fan, just here to see the reactions to the trade (I think a lot of y'all are overrating Porzingis a bit, who has always been a better player in theory or when he's not on your favorite team than when you're actually relying on him, but I get wanting to shake it out), but since I'm a UCLA fan/alum and have watched at least 125 of the 134 games Jaquez has played in a UCLA uniform, I feel like it's worth me chiming in here. If you watched Jaime Jaquez and your takeaway is that he's skilled, I'm not quite sure you're pulling the right things there. He is absolutely a skilled basketball player, but he's not being drafted for his skills. His handle is solid for a wing but most of how he won as a college player just simply isn't going to translate to the NBA. Teams aren't going to let rotation wings make a living posting up at the elbow or feasting on mid-range looks like he is used to, that type of offensive game is typically reserved for the few players in the league who are elite at it (Kawhi, for example). It's the same as centers who are good low-block scorers - unless you're excellent at it, it's not a valuable skill. What he's getting drafted for are all of the intangible things - feel, motor, poise. There are very few surer bets to be capable NBA players simply because he is going to work so hard to be one, and I think that's the primary reason you've seen him rise so much on these boards, because he's just been absolutely dogging everyone in workouts.

Now, I personally think for that reason he's being a little bit overrated. I just can't take the workout setting seriously enough to where I would be convinced by someone coming in and showing well simply by virtue of effort, there are just too many confounding variables that may not translate to when real games are being played. I do a mock draft every year based on what I would do (unhealthily obsessed with all three of the NFL/MLB/NBA drafts, the number of spreadsheets I've made dedicated to them are insane), and I have him as a late first guy. Because ultimately I still think he will find a way to be a valuable rotation piece for a good team, he checks all of the boxes of a winning player and his feel should allow him to be a good connector as a fourth or fifth option on offense and team defender. But in reality he's a tweener in which he's undersized to play the nominal "4" in the NBA and he's way under-athletic to play a true wing, so roster context and defensive insulation are going to be important with him (the Celtics are pretty well-equipped to do this). There's also a chance he's capped out as a 35% or so shooter from three and while that's certainly not bad, it's going to limit his fit in key lineups. I wouldn't bet against him improving the shooting as his workload/offensive role change, but the reason I'd have him lower than a guy like Colby Jones who you mention is because I think Jones is a really good shooter so I view him as much more scalable to the role that I think both will generally end up slotting into at the next level.

And when I say "a bit overrated" I'm specifically talking about mocks that have him going like 18th. 25th to Boston would be a pretty good mix of value and fit, and if I'd have done my mock draft to reflect the trades he'd certainly be in consideration for me there (I think I actually had Colby Jones going to Memphis in the original pick). Also just as an aside, the three guys you listed as comps from Amari Bailey are pretty bad and don't fit his actual skillset at all outside of being small guards. But I'm not going to do another separate tangent on Bailey because I would end up writing 2,000+ words on him, I think he's a really interesting case study. Basically my comp would be "Jordan Poole with the tail outcomes cut off of the distribution curve" but, again, explaining all of that would take more time and energy than it's worth for anyone.